on birds in London and Suburbia.



233



permanently settled nearer than Mitcham. I have seen the whin-

chat feeding young at Finchley within quite recent times, and the

stonechat, both sexes and young, alongside tram lines and where

plenty of people go and pass. Wheatears as passage birds I have

heard pass over the same ground, but I have not seen them. With

regard to Finches, I have seen Goldfinches, single birds and flocks

of birds, on the move and settled near where tram lines, motor ’buses,

factories, and a squalid, thickly-populated neighbourhood existed, and

they were not only noticed by myself, but by old fanciers who lived

in these parts.


Linnets pass over quickly but not rarely, and redpolls, singly

and with young, come into the trees in season on a common

I know, and in winter I could always fetch one down in my garden,

and have heard breeding males singing over the garden. I noticed

a hen goldfinch in the spring of 1916 on my aviary, which dropped

to the singing of my own birds. The song of the chaffinch and

greenfinch in the breeding season is not rare in the old suburbs and

outer suburbs, but I have never heard of hawfinches nearer than

Epping. Bullfinches I have seen in South London coming up the

railway cuttings in winter and migrant birds passing over high up

after an evening feed somewhere near. During snow I have known

of bramblings on Clapham Common. At night I have heard Green

and Golden plover pass over high up, and also Curlew and other

invaders whose cries were unfamiliar to me. Geese have evidently

in mid-winter been also flying high up above the flocks, because

their cry intermingled at times. Whilst walking through South-

East and South-West London, when the flying ants are about, both

starlings and sparrows are made more conspicuous by reason of

their continuous pursuit of them.


This, roughly, constitutes an account of species that have (as

before pointed out) come under notice during the last ten years, and

which have in most instances been discovered by ear. Their presence

has not been made obvious in the course of leisurely strolls, but

during the course of quickly conducted business journeys on foot

or ’bus or occasionally in the course of a morning or night walk.

It serves to an extent to show how birds are gradually pushed out

by alterations. In these ten years I have seen immense estates



